Tobias Menzies is best known for playing a middle-aged Prince Philip in Netflix’s royal biopic The Crown in those twilight, pre-Diana years before it finally went off a cliff. That experience of portraying a minor blue-blood destined to be overshadowed by a more charismatic foil will have stood to him during the making of Manhunt (Apple TV+, Friday), in which he stars as Abraham Lincoln’s political understudy.
Menzies cultivates the most impressive mutton chops in all of North America as Edwin Stanton, a well-connected lawyer who became Lincoln’s secretary for war during the bloody struggle between the Confederacy and the Union. That conflict has ended at the beginning of the well-intentioned but dreary seven-part series. Alas, another is about to begin, as underemployed and vainglorious actor John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) shoots dead the president (Hamish Linklater) in Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC.
Manhunt chronicles, in occasionally tedious detail, the next 12 days and the race to track down Booth. And it truly is a race. If the crisis created by Lincoln’s death spirals out of control, there is every possibility of renewed hostilities between north and south. To paraphrase the great philosopher, Axl Rose, Stanton “don’t need a civil war”.
In theory, assassination, political schisms, and vast 19th-century moustaches should be a potent cocktail in this adaptation of James Swanson’s 2007 non-fiction best-seller Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. Sadly, Manhunt sucks all the fun out.
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It is plodding and stooped under the crushing weight of its own importance. Menzies, moreover, seems to have carried over with him from The Crown some of Philip’s humourless reserve. The president is dead, Edwin isn’t having much of a lark – and golly, he’s going to make sure we don’t either.
There are some positives. Manhunt is beautifully shot and Linklater delivers a singular take on Abe. It is a folksy interpretation – far removed from character brought to the screen by Daniel Day-Lewis.
The problem is that Manhunt assumes that the viewer will be riveted from the outset. That the mere conjuring of Lincoln’s name is enough to keep our bums secured to seat.
Thus, it takes forever to get up and running. Even the bits that should be exciting, such as Booth’s flight from the theatre, land with a thud. As is always the case with Apple TV, it is gorgeously produced. Those handlebar moustaches and mutton chops feel especially on point. But it is all beard and no fun and ultimately a missed opportunity.
